TEEN-AGER TESTIFIES AGAINST PROFESSOR

Juan Antonio Ramirez, a slightly built 18-year-old who looks years younger, avoided the fixed stare of the man at the defense table as he marched into federal court Tuesday.

That defendant, a 58-year-old computer science professor, is Marvin Hersh. He faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison if he is convicted of transporting a minor from Honduras to his Boca Raton house to engage in sex.

Hersh was many things to Ramirez and his dirt-poor family, the teen said during several hours of testimony on Tuesday, the midpoint of a monthlong trial.

He was "one of God's marvels" when he showed up at their hut in La Ceiba in 1994, bearing money for sodas, "Rambo" on video and other treats.

What Hersh quickly became was the youth's sexual predator and sole protector, especially after he plucked Ramirez from his 10-member family and brought him to the United States in August 1995, according to Tuesday's testimony.

But now Hersh is something entirely different to Ramirez, who lives under a new name with a foster family in Palm Beach County.

The man he knew as "Mario," the man who made up the name "John Anthony Hersh" for a fake passport falsely claiming them to be father and son, is all fiction.

"When talking about Mario, everything is a lie," Ramirez said bitterly, explaining why he refused to talk to Hersh's attorney, David Tucker, before the trial.

It was a rare moment of emotion among dry descriptions of deviant sex acts that began when the boy was 14 and tagging along with his brother, Moises, and Hersh. Moises had already had sex with Hersh the first time the three went to a hotel.